A prominent Vietnamese blogger known as “Mother Mushroom” yesterday went on trial for anti-state propaganda, a court clerk said, as rights groups decried the charges as “outrageous” and demanded her immediate release.
Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, whose pen name derives from her daughter’s nickname “mushroom,” was arrested in October last year for critical Facebook posts about politics and the environment.
Vietnam’s one-party state keeps a tight clamp on dissent and routinely jails activists, bloggers and lawyers who speak out against the communist regime.
A court clerk, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, confirmed Quynh’s trial started yesterday morning.
Quynh’s mother, who was allowed to briefly see her daughter on Wednesday for the first time since she was detained, said she has little hope for a not-guilty verdict.
“My daughter has done nothing wrong, but they have been so brutal and repressive,” Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan said.
Reporters were banned from attending the trial in Khanh Hoa Province and photographs on Facebook showed the courthouse heavily guarded by police.
Quynh was a vocal critic of Vietnam’s human rights record, civilian deaths in police custody and the government’s handling of a toxic leak that killed tonnes of fish last year.
She was arrested in the city of Nha Trang on Oct. 10 last year as she was visiting a fellow activist in prison.
She was charged under Article 88 of Vietnam’s criminal code and held incommunicado with no access to lawyers until June 20, her attorney Nguyen Kha Thanh said.
New York-based Human Rights Watch urged authorities to release the 37-year-old blogger this week, calling the trial “outrageous.”
“The scandal here is not what Mother Mushroom said, but Hanoi’s stubborn refusal to repeal draconian, rights-abusing laws that punish peaceful dissent and tarnish Vietnam’s international reputation,” Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said in a statement on Wednesday.
The US, Britain and the EU have all called for Quynh’s release.
She in March received an International Woman of Courage Award from the US Department of State, which Vietnam said was “not appropriate and of no benefit for the development of relations between the two countries.”
In 2015, Quynh was named Civil Rights Defender of the Year by a Sweden-based international advocacy group.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS